This is my first time asking here but I've been a reader for ages! A fantastic place to learn!
I was asked to design a simple board game as a programming project this semester (using C++) and to implement GUI for a bonus mark. I was rather lost reading through tens of possible GUI toolkits and not knowing which one to use. I'm rather a beginner and this is my first big project!
My requirements for GUI are very very basic. All I want is to allow the user to pick from between two options at the start of the game. Those options determine which character the user will pick in the game to play with. This is the only input I want from the user. The console program would receive this input, interpret it and do all the logic of the game in the console window.
Currently, the console window displays a numbered list of options for the user who then picks a number and based off that character input, the console knows what to do through some if-statements.
Up till now, I've been told that GTK+ is a good option and I've been advised to check out wxWidgets and QT4. I'm confused on which one to use since I want something fast to learn and simple to implement because the purpose I want it for is also simple. I was also rather reluctant to start learning a GUI toolkit from its basics then realizing it might not have my simple requirement.
Thank you in advance fellas and sorry for the rather long post!
If you want something pretty basic as far as a GUI goes, it might be worth looking into some sample applications from any of the named projects. See what you can find in a sample application that is most similar to what you have, and try to get that working. Then once you have it working, and tweaked to your liking, maybe play around with things a bit more then for a further/better understanding.
My previous experience is with WxWidgets and Qt. My advice would be to check out Qt because of the great documentation for the project as well as the QAssistant.
Good Luck, GUIs can be really fun to incrementally learn!
Related
I'm developing my first Windows desktop application and I'm trying to figure out what the best approach would be to create the program's GUI.
I know, I know... I feel stupid for asking considering the amount of data on the subject on SO. However most answers seem outdated and I'm not sure if they fit my specific project. Also tutorials for Windows 8 'metro apps' are clogging my Google search results, which is NOT what I'm looking for.
I use Visual Studio. I've followed tutorials. I have basic knowledge of C and Java and extensive experience with PHP. I'm excited to learn C++, so I'm not looking for GUIs to create a GUI (like WinForms). I also don't care about managed code and portability for now, especially since I'm trying to avoid dependencies (i.e. users having to install .NET). As long as it runs smoothly on Vista and up, I'm happy.
The application
The software will teach basic physics to kids. I'd like to create a main area and a sidebar. The main area will feature a physics animation, say a bouncing ball, along with some Q&A. Users can zoom in to the animation to measure some stuff and answer the question. Users can track their progress in the sidebar. That's pretty much it.
What I've found so far
I'm getting a bit frustrated with MSDN. Most of their examples are given in four different languages (C#, C++, etc). I can't seem to get more than a bit of Hello World code from them.
I found a GDI API on MSDN and it seems like a good start for me. However I've read quite a few answers on SO saying creating layouts in pure C++ is really hard, that we're better of using frameworks like ATL and WTL. Since I'm also going to create (somewhat interactive) animations, I've wondered whether I should use gaming-targeted APIs like Direct2D.
Since all of this is new to me, and there are a lot of options, I don't know where to start for my particular application. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Using the raw Win32 API (no additional downloads or third-party helpers):
Here's a good primer (introduces dialog boxes, text boxes, buttons, etc): theForger's Win32 API Tutorial
And here's where you go from there (numeric up-downs, list boxes, combo boxes, tooltips, and more): Common Controls on MSDN. Most of these require you to #include <commctrl.h>.
I also found this to be a good resource that covered what the other two didn't: Win32 Developer - Window Assets
But the Win32 API doesn't seem like it does exactly what you want. A physics app for kids should have a more visual GUI than the API can provide. Good luck, though!
If you're ok with adding additional Frameworks, I'd suggest looking at Qt.
It allows to create the GUI from code only, has a good structure, and has an Interface for 2D drawing, if required.
If you are concerned about dependencies, you only have to include the Qt DLLs to your executables; no installation is required for the user.
To get started, see my (old) tutorial "Lessons in Windows API Programming".
But you really need a good book, such as edition 5 or earlier of Charles Petzold's classic "Programming Windows".
The problem with latest edition is that it's for C# and .NET, with Charles grabbing the tail of the "new way" at just the wrong time…
Disclaimer: I haven't checked the details of edition numbers.
Using the Windows API is the simplest, but producing advanced GUIs can take a very long time. Microsoft Foundation Class is a way to make the Windows API more user friendly and OOP. Does anyone have any experience with MFC?
Why not use some 2D C++ game engine, like HGE: http://hge.relishgames.com/overview.html.
I have recently read MFC Internals (ISBN 9780201407211) and it helped me greatly gain an intimate understanding of how MFC works and increased productivity about 100 fold. I was wondering now that I am into Qt, is there any book or documentation out there like this? I have been having a hard time finding straight-up documentation on Qt, it always seems to be beat-around=the-bush style of documentation (they tell you how to build the house, but not how to cut down the tree) ??
The best way is to try developing your own application. Just start from a basic application like calculator. Add a few widgets to it and code it as you go. For reference use "C++ gui programming with Qt4" mentioned by Zlatomir. I have recently designed a whole GUI using Qt. I drew its screenshots on Inkscape to get a prototype look and afterwards I started working on designer to fulfill each functionality. Then I implemented the code and I repeated the designing and coding steps. Also, the best help will be Qt Assistant - its sufficiently complete, no Internet required so save times and simple to use. Going my way, you will not only learn Qt in short interval after which you can go through the book to know what tips and tricks you might not know, but also it will be interesting so that you may not give up like many others who just fall midway through the reading part. Warning - Doing this way, you will also know about pitfalls/drawbacks of Qt and how to not go that way.
This is one of the links I found last night. I went through 2 pages and found it might make your life a bit easier - http://zetcode.com/gui/qt4/
I have not read the MFC book you mentioned, but the Qt framework i learned by reading from "C++ gui programming with Qt4" (the first edition is available as a free download) and "Foundation of Qt development" and also it's worth mentioning this documentation page, that contains links to the basic concepts of Qt framework.
I am immediately placing this as a community wiki thing. I don't want to ask for help in programming yet or have even a specific question about programming, but rather the process and the resources needed to make such a game.
To put it simply: My college friend and I decided to give ourselves a really big challenge to further our skills in programming. In six months time we want to show ourselves a Pac-Man game. Pac-Man will be AI-controlled like the Ghosts and whichever Pac-Man lives the longest after a set of tries wins.
This isn't like anything we've done so far. The goal here, for me, isn't to create a perfect game, but to try and complete it, learn a whole bunch in the process. Even if I don't finish in the time, which is a good possibility, I would want to have at least tried this.
So my question is this: How should I start preparing myself? I already have started vector math, matrices, all that fun stuff. My desired platform would be DirectX 9.0c; is that advisable? Keep in mind that this is not a preference just for this project, but I wish to have some kind of future in graphics development, so I want to pick a platform that is future-safe.
As for the game development in general, what should I take into consideration? I have never done a real game before, so any and all advise to development of mid-scale projects( if this would be a mid-scale project ) is greatly appreciated.
My main concerns are the pit-falls and demotivators.
Sorry if the question is so vague. If it doesn't belong here, then I will remove it. Otherwise, any and all advise regarding making larger projects is greatly appreciated.
Given you've not tried this sort of thing before here's a few things I'd recommend.
Start with something other than DirectX (and presumably C++)
DirectX and C++ expose you to a lot of low-level stuff you can learn later. Keep things simple and perhaps try XNA and C# which is close enough you can port it later but will let you skip a lot of things like memory management and pointers for now.
Start with 2D instead of 3D
The original Pacman is 2D so you won't be needed vector math for now.
So where does that leave you?
Well, a few things to think about are the game loop, keeping things in sync, updating the screen and responding to user input.
These are great principles and will let you get something up and running a lot sooner. Do not underestimate how important it is to keep seeing progress - this is hard if you set the technical bar too high initially.
I'd go down this route (ordered to keep things fun and interesting)
Get a screen displaying - this is highly visual
Get a Pacman responding to user input
Get Pacman constrained to within the walls
Get a ghost responding to secondary user input - you can chase each other
Figure out some collision detection
Get the dots and power pills rendering so you can score and eat ghost
Render some more ghosts and figure out AI
Work out the code for finding when the level is complete
Make the map change and state reset when on a new level
Once you've got this working and running you can then decide if you want to play with better AI, 3D math or switch over to C++.
I had to write a pacman game in Java for an OO class. I found it to be very straightforward, possibly with the exception of figuring out the best way to map walls. After a bit of research, I came across this: http://javaboutique.internet.com/PacMan/source.html which uses bit-shifting to determine walls. It looks like complexity overkill, but I found it to be pretty elegant after I played around with the math a little. Other than that, pacman is a very array-friendly concept, so use an array for the board, some basic sprites, tinker with the speed and refresh, keep track of game data, and toss it in a loop.
As for the AI with the ghosts, there are articles written about them. Each ghost has a specific "strategy". Or you could roll your own..you could program them to be as easy as always heading towards pacman (or his general location/quadrant), or as complex (shortest-path) as you'd like.
Play pacman! This is the first task for your project!
I'd look at the original arcade cabinet assembly code for Pacman and the description of what it does. It's a real eye opener :)
Personally, here's what I would do:
study open source games to see what they do
buy a book about game programming (actually, I have a book about game programming already, but you probably want something more recent than that)
pick a toolset/game development library (Sourceforge, Google Code)
work through the tutorials that come with that library, possibly change to a different library if the API is too weird
come up with a requirements document
draw up a first pass design ("plan to throw one away"), try to have somebody review it
decide on a test plan
write up a schedule, not because I want to stay on schedule but because I want to break things down into easily-defined tasks
write the smallest complete game I could (eg., a Pac Man sprite that I can control inside a window: no maze, ghosts, score, lives, ability to die, etc.)
add features to that game until I've implemented the whole thing
Sounds like a good idea for a learning project! The 2 general things I recommend for your approach are
work in iterations
read a bunch about C++ and DirectX along the way
Start small -- write some code that does nothing more than draw Pac-Man on the screen. Then build on that by implementing movement across the screen. Then build the map boundaries and the inability to travel through them. And continue in this fashion, prioritizing the next task you need to complete, and then doing whatever it takes to complete it. Try not to make the tasks too big.
In order to figure out how to complete the tasks, you'll need to read. Books, web sites and existing code are all very helpful in figuring out how to do what you want. It's worth looking at several different ways to complete the same task, because some ways are better than other, or might better fit your project.
Good stuff! I am glad that Pacman motivates and inspires you.
Things to get started.
1) Decide on the development environment.
a) Are you building a standalone game or a networked game.
b) Which language are you targetting at to improve?
2) How well versed with AI?
3) How well versed with the programming algorithms techniques - like A * (A star) path finding, Dijkstra algorith, collision detection, hit testing or even recursive programming?
4) Are any of you talented in graphical design?
Good luck.
P/S FYI, if I were to write a Pacman game, I would do it in C# and Silverlight 4.0 (I can write C++ comfortably but my priority is to jump on the Silverlight bandwagon).
For my school project, I would like to build a gui that someone else can use to create a gui. Upon some research I saw lot of gui builders but didn't see anything along the lines of what I am looking for.
But then I did find a tutorial using C# on here
I rather create this gui editor for linux environment.
Any suggestions to where I should start? what tools I can use? Any links to any tutorials?
Any help/direction would be greatly appreciated.
P.S. I would like to add that it only needs to be very simple. like few text input fields and some button type fields that user can arrange in the order desired.
I would recommend that you not try to build your own GUI builder. It is a daunting task that you will not be able to accomplish as a school project. C++ is fully-compiled, which means that it lacks almost every feature that enables people to build meta-tools (like GUI editors) for it. This mainly has to do with the fact that C++ does not have runtime reflection (natively, anyway). Beyond that, there is no "one GUI toolkit and/or paradigm to rule them all." This makes your problem incredibly difficult to deal with.
So: I would recommend Qt, because it works on a ton of platforms, is easy to use and is just plain awesome. You could also look at the billions of other GUI toolkits like Gtk+, Tk, FLTK, YAAF, GLUI, dlib, CLX...
I'm aware that this does not actually answer the question. However, I do not think that the author is aware of how incredibly difficult the task he has set in front of himself is.
I would recommend starting by implementing it like an interpreter. Start with a very simple command line tool that takes commands like window(300, 400, "window1") and button(50,100, "button1") etc and output the code (native or whatever other GUI code you want), to a file. The goal should be to output a file that can be run and show the GUI that was designed. Once you have that, build a GUI that uses the command line functions as a back-end.
I don't have any exact links to this, but here's an example of what you could do. Gtk has the option of loading a GUI by using a class called GtkBuilder. Glade (the usual Gtk gui editor) has support for outputting it's result as an XML file that the GtkBuilder class then reads.
It would be possible for your program to output an equivalently formed XML file that GtkBuilder could read.
I have no clue as to how difficult it would be to target that XML though.
You should use GTK+ or Qt if you are targeting the linux environment. I think the first step is to learn how to program gui, which takes some time considering you are writing c/c++ code wich is different from higher level languages. Don't you think learning to code gui programs and writing a gui builder at the same time is a little bit too much.? First you should master the basics about gui and then go on to harder projects.
Here's a link to an excellent book on gtk. (Foundations of gtk+ development - Andrew Krause)
http://books.google.com/books?id=L1BZZYRrqSgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=foundations+krause&hl=es&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
And here's a great tutorial/cookbook for gtk+.
http://zetcode.com/tutorials/gtktutorial/
The official documentation is on library.gnome.org
My final advice is learn one thing at a time.
Hi I am working in VC++ and I am quite interested in game programming and I have few queries.
1).What one must know before starting game programming ?
2).Can anybody give me info # resources like tutorial ,links ,etc. which would help me to start as fast as possible ?
3).Also give me info # some good books on game programming ?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Before you start programming you must have a good understanding of the language, how to program and how to structure and test your code. Oh, and a huge amount of either patience or free time. On the maths front, Vectors, Matrices and Quaternions are the main things I found I needed.
The other thing that often goes overlooked when I programmer starts writing a game is someone to create the assets. Preferably someone specialized in it.
You mention DirectX, which is not actually a fast way to go as you have to build everything from square one, which means a lot more maths, performance testing and overall handwork. I would suggest at least a rendering engine like Ogre3D. There are plenty of tutorials and a very good community.
There is a good post here on why you should write games not engines.
The main reason you would want to use DirectX is to enhance your understanding of the lower levels, all the things an engine is abstracting for you. While I think this is a good thing to do, I wouldn't want to do it for a major or first project.
The main site I used for help was gamedev.net, although I also found some intresting articles on gamesutra
It takes time and requires a lot of patience. And playable game is more than just working C++ code.
gamedev.net.
First, download Visual C# Express Edition, and then download XNA Game Studio 3.1.
After that, check out the XNA Creators Club - that has lots of help to get you up and running quickly.
Are you 100% dedicated to C++? If not, I would recommend starting with XNA/C# instead. DirectX will force you to spend a lot of time up front learning API calls before you ever get something on the screen. XNA will allow you to start coding your game very quickly while getting immediate feedback while you program.
If you are committed to C++, I would recommend Beginning Game Programming by Jonathan Harbour. He starts with an easy to understand framework that won't take long to pick up. Remember that to use DirectX you will have to learn win32, and low level DirectX code.
For tutorials, try googling "c++ beginning game programming tutorial". Gamedev.net will be another invaluable resource. Go to the "For Beginners" forum and look through the stickies.
As for what you must know, it depends on your aspirations and your choice of tools. As a beginner, you will want to start small and in 2D or text games. To get a Pong game going in XNA, you only need to have basic C# skills and basic collision detection. To get a Pong game going in DirectX, you will need to understand win32 code, and a ton of device calls. To do a console text game, you only need to know basic C++ and maybe some basic gameflow techniques.
If using DirectX is not a fixed requirement, you should consider OpenGL, and use a library like SFML or Allegro to handle all the basic stuff.
http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro/
http://www.sfml-dev.org/